


frankenstein was the monster

by Ffwydriad



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, Series 12 spoilers, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: for better and for worse, the strangers who come knocking at their doors always tend to be interesting.Mary Shelley, the Doctor, and Cybermen, twice over.
Relationships: The Doctor & Mary Shelley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	frankenstein was the monster

The day is dark, the thunder crashing. She hates to be returned to this dreadful summer, to this house which she has so outgrown, but she feels no regret, as she holds her son close and kisses his sweet head, sending him to sleep. 

“Perhaps,” Claire says, and even  _ she _ brings no regret, “Lord Byron or Doctor Polidori would read to us?”

“What would Miss Clairemont wish to hear?” Byron asks, and in Claire’s pause, she sweeps back into scene. 

“Something to awaken thrilling horror,” she suggests, wide-eyed, smiling. “To make us dread to look around. To curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.”

It is, perhaps, a fair bit selfish, knowing how easily shocked some of their compatriots can be, but she has grown a fondness for such tales she cannot quite seem to shake, and irregardless, Percy is absent, and Claire is not so easily swayed, not if it is Byron, reading the words. 

And then, of course, comes the knocking on the door. Beneath her, Claire shrieks, and Mary cannot help but stifle quite a laugh. 

“What if it’s she,” Claire asks, looking towards the sound with a fright. 

“Hildegarde,” Mary teases, gently, “the death-bride.”

“If something infernal is on my doorstep,” Byron pronounces, “I should be the one to go and greet it. Who is brave enough to come and see?”

He stands, of course, but Mary takes the forefront. Infernal, that she doubts, but for all it may have led to things less than desirable, she has no regrets, opening that door days and years hence, for all the strangeness that was brought hence - none at all. 

There are strangers, at the door - strangers who do sure bring trouble, and adventure - and as the thunder cracks, and two groups scream, Mary Shelley welcomes with a shade of selfishness an adventure she hadn’t been expecting. 

* * *

The strangers are right fun - good at dancing, and if not quite as eloquent as her typical company, possessing of an eagerness that more than makes up for that small failing. They are also, most assuredly, possessing a failure of composure that she recognizes, and is uncertain whether to find comforting or aggravating.

She thinks, quite foolishly, that it is to be a pleasant visitage. Even as Polidori declares a duel, she isn’t quite able to shake that idea.

And then, of course, the skeletal hand attacks, and any notions that this will not be such an adventure is as broken as the thought that this woman, going by no name other than Doctor, is mere coincidence. 

* * *

Percy had a vision - a nightmare, he has them frequently. She had thought she’d known the reason, for this latest one, thought it a lingering memory from a night the rest had all forgotten, with far too much laudanum and not quite enough sense. She’d found it quite amusing. 

She finds it less so, with the knowledge that the figure he saw may not be dream, and even less so, when she starts to hear William’s cries. 

Her son. She feels guilt insurmountable, for leaving him. This house, once haven, has become a place of death, and she has left her son to whatever nightmarish monsters have followed in this female Doctor’s wake. 

* * *

“What,” the Doctor poses, “if something came here that wasn’t supposed to, and caused a major disturbance?”

“Like what?” her companion asks. 

“That?” Mary asks, gesturing towards the window, at the monster glowing outside. It is a monster, undoubtedly, and it is getting closer. 

“It’s not a vision,” the Doctor murmurs. “It never was. It’s a traveler, moving through time. And it’s trying to get in.”

It shimmers, appears before them, sparking with electric energy. It turns, and stares, and asks in that achingly familiar voice, “Are you the guardian?”

“That,” the Doctor says,

“A Cyberman?” Mary calls out, wide eyed, in the same turn of phrase, and, still using her version of the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor turns to stare at her. 

“What?”

“Jack’s warning!” Her companion, Miss Khan, calls out. “Beware of the lone Cyberman! Don’t let it have what it wants!”

“At all costs!”

The others, they barricade the door against intrusion, but the Doctor turns to stare at her. 

“How does Mary Shelley know what a Cyberman is?” the Doctor asks. 

“Are you the Doctor, truly?” Mary asks. “Because this is exactly the kind of thing that wishes me to cry your name and call you forth.”

“We’ve met!” the Doctor exclaims. “We’ve met- no, yes, of course - Vienna, the Silver Turk -”

“You traveled with Mary Shelley and you didn’t tell us?” Ryan asks. 

“The Cyberman,” Mary repeats, more urgent as the door creaks. “What does it want?”

“I’ve no idea,” the Doctor says, and Mary cannot help but groan at that. “Whatever he came for is hidden here. It explains the security.” She frowns. “I need to beat him to it. Quick.”

“Doctor, what are you doing? Where are you going?” Miss Khan asks. 

“I have to find out what he’s looking for,” the Doctor says. “Alone.”

“You don’t work alone,” Mary says. “You never hesitated, bringing your companions into danger.”

“Things are different,” the Doctor says. 

“You need backup,” Miss Khan says. “All of us against one.”

“One Cyberman,” the Doctor says, “but then thousands. Humans, like all of you, changed into empty, soulless shells. No feeling, no control, no way back.” She grips the door, ightly. “I will not lose anyone else to that! Do not follow me.”

Mary frowns, and watches the Doctor leave. 

And then, she thinks of the Silver Turk, of stringless mannequins, of vengeance and stolen eyes and a little girl too young to be protected. 

Death has always haunted her, but not near as dearly as it has haunted the Doctor, and once again, the fear returns to settle in her chest, an ever bosom companion. 

“What if it finds William?” she poses, and wishes that there was a fire poker, or a ray pistol, or some semblance of comfort with which she could arm herself, for all she knows that the only weapon of any use she has against such monsters are words. 

* * *

“Shelley’s only one life against all those others,” Ryan says. 

“No!” Mary cries out, staring wide-eyed at the companion, at this Doctor. “No. Not three days hence did we depart and I swore off the dangers that follow in your company, not now for you to come upon this door and condemn my husband to death? No! I won’t allow it - Doctor, you must save him.”

The Doctor doesn’t even here her, focus entirely on her companions, on this speech, and for a moment, as Mary stands there, staring, she realizes that this woman who stands before her, she is not the man she knew. 

Within a single day, she had spent well past a year, and had returned, quite different, and if, perhaps, her associates here had not been used to melancholy states themselves, they would have found her disposition quite radically altered.

She wonders how many years have passed, for her Doctor to have gained this new face, this new form, this new disposition and view of the world that is so different and yet echoingly familiar. Years, certainly, but centuries? She had known that he wasn’t human, but it is only here and now that it is really beginning to fall into place. 

Did she ever really know him?

Unarmed, Mary Shelley turns to the Cyberman, with its demands, its threats against Percy. She looks it in the eyes, one flesh exposed and one hard metal. She thinks of what she remembers, of a lonesome pair, years hence. 

She is armed, with the only weapon that has ever mattered against these things: words, emotions. 

She thinks of Gramm and Bremm, of broken souls who she had thought perhaps worthy of being saved, and of tugs against heart strings that broke them apart and condemned them to their unsightly end. 

“What is your name, sir?” she asks, even as she hears the Doctor’s concern. 

At best, this is a weapon; at worst, a feeble attempt to buy the Doctor time to save her husband; and all that she can hold on to is the hope that it will not doom her too. 

Hope that perhaps this one can be saved - for was that not the lesson her time abroad had taught her most dearest, that it is always best to offer an open, curious hand and hope that giving love instead of fear might find some form of salvation? 

* * *

“How should I address you?” she asks the man as she takes his arm, as he offers her the stars. “Doctor Frankenstein-”

“Just Doctor,” he tells her. “You must always remember that Frankenstein is the monster.”

**Author's Note:**

> fam: doctor, how do you just /forget/ that you travelled with mary shelley
> 
> 13: i mean, in my defense, i had a lot of amnesia in that body. like, so much amnesia. i'm amazed i even remember what i looked like, back then, honestly.


End file.
